Iraqi Kurds Detail Demands For a Degree of Autonomy

By EDWARD WONG; Dexter Filkins contributed reporting from Baghdad for this article.

Published: February 18, 2005

From his snow-covered mountain fortress, Massoud Barzani sees little other than the rugged hills of Iraqi Kurdistan and green-clad militiamen posted along the serpentine road below.

The border with the Arab-dominated rest of Iraq is far off. Baghdad lies even farther off and, if Kurdish leaders like Mr. Barzani have their way, will fade almost entirely out of the picture here.

Since the fall of Saddam Hussein, the Kurds have made known their determination to retain a degree of autonomy in the territory they have dominated for more than a decade. Now, after their strong performance in the elections last month, Kurdish leaders are for the first time spelling out specific demands.

From control of oil reserves to the retention of the Kurdish militia, the pesh merga, to full authority over taxation, the requested powers add up to an autonomy that is hard to distinguish from independence.

''The fact remains that we are two different nationalities in Iraq -- we are Kurds and Arabs,'' Mr. Barzani said as he sat in a reception hall at his headquarters in Salahuddin. ''If the Kurdish people agree to stay in the framework of Iraq in one form or another as a federation, then other people should be grateful to them.''

Kurdish autonomy is expected to be one of the most divisive issues during the drafting of the new constitution, alongside the debate over the role of Islam in the new Iraq. The Kurds' demands are already alarming Iraq's Arabs, particularly the majority Shiites, and raising tensions with neighboring countries, where governments are trying to suppress Kurdish separatist movements within their own borders.

In interviews, top Kurdish leaders like Mr. Barzani, head of the Kurdistan Democratic Party, set out a list of demands that are more far-reaching than the Kurds have articulated in the past:

$(6$)They want the ownership of any natural resources, including oilfields, and the power to determine how the revenues are split with the central government.

$(6$)They want authority over the formidable militia called the pesh merga, estimated at up to 100,000 members, in defiance of the American goal of dismantling ethnic and sectarian armies. The pesh merga would be under nominal national oversight, but actual control would remain with regional commanders. No other armed forces would be allowed to enter Kurdistan without permission from Kurdish officials.

$(6$)They want power to appoint officials to work in and operate ministries in Kurdistan, which would parallel those in Baghdad. These would include the ministries that oversee security and the economy.

$(6$)They want authority over fiscal policy, including oversight of taxes and the power to decide how much tax revenue goes to Baghdad. The national government would make monetary policy but would not be able to raise revenue from Kurdistan without the agreement of Kurdish officials.

Moreover, the region's borders would be changed, in the Kurds' vision. The ''green line'' that defines the boundary between the Kurdistan and the rest of Iraq would be officially pushed south, to take in the oil-rich city of Kirkuk, the city of Khanaqin and the area of Sinjar. Kurdish leaders argue that this would just reestablish historic borders where Mr. Hussein had drastically altered the demographics by displacing Kurds with Arab settlers.

''It must be clear in the constitution what is for the Kurds and what is for the Iraqi government,'' said Fouad Hussein, an influential independent Kurdish politician.

The fierce political drive of the Kurds, who make up a fifth of Iraq's 28 million people, became apparent during the Jan. 30 elections, when turnout across the three provinces of Iraqi Kurdistan -- Sulaimaniya, Erbil and Dohuk -- averaged 84 percent, well above the national average of 58 percent.

Those votes secured for the main Kurdish alliance 75 of 275 seats in the constitutional assembly. The alliance finished second, behind the main Shiite slate, which ended up with a slim majority of 140 seats, which is short of the two-thirds needed to form a government.

The Kurds are now in the position of kingmaker, courted by the Shiite parties and competing smaller groups like the secular slate led by Prime Minister Ayad Allawi.

The Kurds are asking for Mr. Barzani's main rival, Jalal Talabani, to be chosen as president. More audacious is their insistence on broad powers for their region under a federal system. The autonomy envisioned by the Kurds is likely to inflame the formerly ruling Sunni Arabs, who lack officially authorized militias and rich natural resources in their own traditional territory.

But it is the Shiites, having finally achieved here after decades of struggle, who are likely to offer the strongest opposition to Kurdish autonomy.

The top Shiite clerics ''are very difficult,'' said Nawzad Hadi Mawlood, the governor of Erbil Province, the largest Kurdish province. ''They're hard negotiators,'' he said. ''They're inflexible. The Shia do not want to admit the federal system for the Kurds.''

Many Shiite leaders complain that the Kurds press too many demands and already exercise power in the interim government out of proportion with their numbers. Kurds hold the posts of deputy prime minister, foreign minister and the head of Parliament, as well as one of two vice presidencies.

''There is a sense that the Kurds have taken more privileges than the others,'' said Sheik Humam Hamoudi, a senior official of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, a powerful Shiite party. ''So we advise the Kurds to be more Iraqi.''

Besides holding more than a quarter of the seats in the constitutional assembly, the Kurds have another powerful tool in the transitional law approved last spring. Under that law, a two-thirds vote in any three provinces can veto a national referendum on the constitution. Kurdish leaders could easily mobilize such a vote.

The relatively secular Kurds might also make a deal with the religious Shiites in which the Kurds would gain significant autonomy in return for agreeing not to block Shiite efforts to establish an Islamic form of government elsewhere in Iraq.

Kurdish leaders argue that their push for federalism is nothing more than an attempt to maintain the status quo. Iraqi Kurdistan, a mountainous area the size of Switzerland, has existed as an autonomous region since the end of the Persian Gulf war of 1991, when the American military established a no-flight zone in northern Iraq.

''Like all the nations of the world, all the people of the world, we have the ability to rule ourselves, and we've proven that in the last 14 years,'' Hezha Anoor, 18, said as he and his friends stood outside a Chinese restaurant here in Sulaimaniya, the capital of eastern Kurdistan.

Iraqi Kurdish leaders maintain that while they would like to see an independent Kurdistan in their lifetimes, secession is not practical now.

The threat from countries like Turkey is too great, they say. And the economy of Kurdistan, which depended on smuggling during the United Nations sanctions against Iraq imposed in the 1990's, would benefit from sharing in revenues from the vast southern oilfields, said Barham Salih, the deputy prime minister of Iraq and a top Kurdish official.

Yet if the Kurdish leaders do succeed in winning strong autonomy, that could inspire greater calls for independence. ''Iraq is a beast,'' Pire Mughan, 63, a grizzled poet and former pesh merga fighter, said as he sipped tea in the shadow of the citadel of Erbil. ''Arabs are beasts, because their entire history is one of killings and massacres.

''I didn't vote for anyone in the elections, because I believe in independence, not in federalism. If I had voted, it would have meant voting for federalism, and that would have been treason for future generations.''

Photo: One of the Kurdish leaders' demands is keeping their militia, the pesh merga, intact. An anti-terror brigade trained Wednesday near Sulaimaniya. (Photo by Shawn Baldwin for The New York Times)

Map of Iraq highlighting Sulaimaniya: In Sulaimaniya, the Kurds are seeking to control their affairs.